In a production process of an IC device, etc., a testing apparatus is necessary for testing a finally produced electronic device. In such a testing apparatus, a large number of IC devices are housed in a tray to be conveyed by an electronic device handling apparatus called a handler, and the IC devices are brought to electrically contact a test head and tested by a main testing apparatus (tester). At this time, the IC devices to be tested are pressed against the test head in a state of being held on a test tray. When the test is finished, the electronic device handling apparatus carries out the IC devices from the test head and reloads on trays in accordance with the test results to sort the IC devices to categories, such as good ones and defective ones.
The test tray is attached with, for example, 32 or 64 of IC device holders called inserts, and the IC devices are housed in the inserts and held by latches so as not to jump out from the inserts.
Here, a method of holding an IC device by a conventional insert will be explained. As shown in FIG. 15, an insert 16P comprises an insert body 161P having an IC housing part 19P, a drive plate 162P for covering the insert body 161P, drive members 165P capable of moving up and down on the inert body 161P, and latches 164P capable of swinging in accordance with the upward/downward movement of the drive members 165P.
At the lower end portion of the latch 164P is penetrated by an axis pin 166P provided on both sides of the IC housing part 19P, and the latch 164P can swing about the axis pin 166P. A suppressing tab 164Pa is provided at the end portion of the latch 164P on the IC housing part 19P side, and at the end portion of the latch 164P on the other side of the IC housing part 19P is formed a long hole 164Pb penetrated by a pin 167P being allowed to slide.
The drive member 165P holds the above pin 167P at its lower end portion and is biased upward by a coil spring 168P provided between itself and the inert body 161P.
In such an insert 16P, the drive plate 162P and the drive member 165P position at the upper side in a state with no load as shown in FIG. 15(a), and the suppressing tab 164Pa of the latch 164P is out to the IC housing part 19P.
As shown in FIG. 15(b), when the drive plate 162P of the insert 16P is pressed to move the drive member 165P downward, the pin 167P moves downward along the long hole 164Pb of the latch 164P. Along therewith, the latch 164P swings to the opening direction, and the suppressing tab 164Pa of the latch 164P recedes from the IC housing part 19P.
After placing an IC device 2 in the IC housing part 19P in this state, when the pressure on the drive plate 162P is released, as shown in FIG. 15C, the drive member 165P moves upward, the latch 164P swings to the closing direction, and the suppressing tab 164Pa of the latch 164P goes out to the IC housing part 19P. At this time, the suppressing tab 164Pa of the latch 164P covers the upper surface of the IC device 2, so that the IC device 2 is prevented from jumping out from the IC housing part 19P.
The IC device 2 normally has an error on outer dimensions in each product. Accordingly, the IC housing part 19P has to be formed larger than the maximum values of the outer dimensions of the IC device 2 to surely hold the IC device 2. Therefore, when an IC device 2 with large outer tolerance, particularly an IC device 2 with small outer dimensions, is placed in the IC housing part 19P, a play of the IC device 2 inside the IC housing part 19P becomes large and the possibility of arising a contact error between external terminals 2B of the IC device 2 with probe pins 51 provided on the test head becomes high. Also, when the probe pins 51 stick positions deviated from the center of the external terminals 2B of the IC device 2, the external terminals 2B abnormally deform or the probe pins 51 bend or broke in some cases.
Such a problem has become more serious as the IC devices 2 become more compact and pitches of the external terminals 2B become narrower recently.
Since the latch 164P only covered over the IC device 2 and a function of aligning the IC device 2 was not provided in the conventional insert 16P, the problem could not be solved by the latch 164P.
The Patent Gazette of Japanese patent No. 3294978 discloses an insert (IC carrier) having the same action as that of the above conventional insert 16P, but the insert also has the same problem as the above conventional insert 16P.